The invention relates to a medical glove, particularly a powder free medical glove and the method for manufacturing the same.
Gloves fabricated from elastomeric materials such as natural rubber latex have suffered from many problems. An important criteria for medical gloves is to conform tightly to the hand of the wearer. Natural rubber with its inherent high coefficient of friction properties makes glove donning difficult. Conventional medical gloves usually have a lubricant on the inner surface to provide ease of glove donning- The lubricant used is a powder materials in one form or another and commonly used powder is absorbable starch powder. However, there have been doubts raised against the use of loose dusting powder for surgical procedures as it may be hazardous to health. There are fears that dusting powder may cause granuloma and other post operative complications. Therefore many efforts were made to reduce or eliminate the use of loose powder to facilitate the donning of medical gloves by developing various methods to improve the donning properties.
Examples of methods of manufacturing medical gloves have been described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,499,154, 5,088,125, 1,398,552, 5,284,607 and 4143,109.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,154 describes the use of a lubricant, particularly a hydrogel, of which is polymer bonded to inner surface of the medical gloves followed by the application of a surfactant to improve the glove lubricity for donning.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,125 describes the manufacture of medical gloves involving the application of a blend of anionic polyurethane and a second polymer. The U.S. Pat. No. 1,398,552 further describes the application of vinyl chloride-alkyl acrylate copolymer or a vinyledene chloride-alkyl acrylate copolymer in order to improve glove lubricity.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,143,109 and 5,284,607 describes the application of a particle containing composition to bond to the gloves. The particles may comprise of any variety of acid-resistant composition such as crosslinked cornstarch, polyurethane etc.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative to the above kinds of medical gloves. In particular the invention seeks to provide a medical glove, of natural or synthetic latex polymer having an anti-blocking composition on the surface contacting layer which is novel over above said prior art which involve the use of three components comprising of a polymer/copolymer, a micronised high density polyethylene and a wax and which could be applied in the method of making medical gloves, it is also another object of the invention to provide a novel coating composition of which is applicable to other types of elastomeric articles such as clean room gloves, condoms, caps, catheters, sheets and sheet-type incontinence devices.
In accordance with this invention, there is provided a powder free medical glove produced from natural or synthetic polymer comprising an outer side a silicone treated surface and the inside of the glove bonded with a layer formed of an anti-blocking composition of a polymer/co-polymer choosen from polyether polyurethane, vinylidene chloride-alkyl acrylate and/or natural rubber polymer, a high density polyethylene of micronised form and a wax which is a mixture of carnauba and paraffin wax and a method of making the same.